Why are we embarrassed to share our deepest selves?

Why do we think that sharing what we create is silly and stupid?

I was eleven-years-old the first time I told God I wanted to be a writer, and I’ve pretty much told him that every day since then.

But I am too scared.

And I am embarrassed.

I’m not embarrassed because I think my writing isn’t any good.   I think, honestly, maybe I am embarrassed because I know it is good.  And it’s embarrassing to think about sharing my creative self with the world because I feel safer feeling like the hidden and timid idiot in the background.

Why the hell do I let those mean voices even have a say in what I do with the words I write?  The voices that tell me I should just be quiet because it’s a silly pipe-dream to let my words out — why do I give them so much sway over the words inside me?  Why do I let them determine what I share and how far I go?

I have been telling God I want to be a writer every day for 12 years.

But the thought of letting my words out the open is embarrassing.

Embarrassing. 

“Causing a feeling of self-conscious confusion and distress.”

I fell in love with words because of their incredible and complex ability to connect humans with the world around them; to connect us with God and each other in a way that we can feel and express and understand.  I fell in love with words because of their way to reach the unreachable and express the inexpressible; their ability to reach us right where we are and give us the satisfying sigh of, “Yes, that’s me.”

I love words because they have a rhythm, a design that is so intrinsically holy.

I love words because In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing has come into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it (John 1:1-5).

I love words because Jesus is the Word, and the way the that holy and healing Light shines into that darkness I can’t shake… How can your eyes not mist over with reverent awe of adoration?

But I let my insecurity and my pettiness turn the words into something vile, something vain and something causing “self-conscious confusion and distress.”

Why would I let my words wander here?

I love words because they have the capacity to reveal so much of Jesus and yet I choose to let them make me hide who he can be through me.

I want to let my words go.

I imagine — Jesus, the Word, with God in the beginning, through whom all things were created… Embarrassed.  Shy.  Feeling it would be much safer to hide.

What if God didn’t create?

What if He stopped creating?

The fact that there is creative fire burning inside the veins of his people is proof that God hasn’t finished telling his story.

Are we listening?

Are we listening to the divinic syllables, the holy orchestrations and the Christ-like heartbeats of story unfolding?  Are we listening to the creative fibers that make our fingertips tremble and our voices shake?

Are we listening to the story he’s telling, the song he’s singing; seeing the portrait he’s painting?

And like any good story there are different views and characters; it has depth and emotion and rhythm and style and grace; different pieces all rising and falling together like an expansion of breath and maybe, just maybe, what this magnum opus needs is your breath, your beat, your piece and your perspective. 

So let your words go.

Stop hiding behind embarrassment; get rid of the pride and let God tell his story through you.

Children of God, 

It’s time to let the Word go.

Let it run wild and free through the tips of your fingers and tongue; let it splash from your soul and onto canvas.  Let the Light shine through; release it from the fear-soaked corridors and let it dance out into the hallways of your unfolding life.  Let his life saturate your world through color, through sound, through dance, beat, anthem; through heartbeat storytelling and soul aching music making.

Let the ultimate Creator create something beautiful inside your hurt, your tears and fears and heartbreaks and failures; let him set his brush to it.  Let him sing his song to it.

My darlings, let your words go.  Let them go.